October is known in the crypto world as an “up only” month, thanks to Bitcoin’s historically excellent performance. Other than 2018 and 2019, Bitcoin finished higher every October since 2013. While many are hoping non-fungible tokens will see a similar trajectory play out this year, history tells NFT traders to cancel party plans and to plan for floptober instead.
The second half of the calendar year is the Mr. Hyde to the year’s Dr. Jekyll, with NFT sales and value falling straight off a cliff. October is no exception to the rule as evidenced by the past two years in NFTs.
NFT sales dropped 8.7%, from US$4.2 billion in September 2021 to US$3.8 billion in October. Average sales prices also fell 28% between months, from US$557.12 to US$400.22.
In 2022, a similar story unfolded with sales falling 12.5%, from US$643 million in Septempber to US$562 million in October. Average sales prices however increased 10.4% from US$76.63 to US$84.66.
At the macro level, the Forkast 500 NFT Index reflects no difference in the loss of value in September 2022 and October 2022, with the NFT market losing just over 7% of its value each month.
Last year, October served as a bookend for the year’s six-month slide, but ultimately, both 2021 and 2022 needed a catalyst for the market to reverse. 2021’s end-of-year $SOS airdrop injected much-needed liquidity into the market and put an end to three consecutive months of declines.
FTX’s collapse in November 2022 brought lower crypto prices and a bit of a rallying moment for NFT collectors. While the value of NFTs plummeted 24.57%, total sales increased 9.25% to US$614 million.
NFTs largely move independently of the crypto markets, or maybe even opposite. Cheap crypto means discounted NFTs, so higher-priced crypto means more expensive NFTs. With NFTs still feeling overvalued, Uptober in crypto almost certainly spells bad news for NFTs this month. Until we see fresh liquidity injected into the market or another catalyst, we’ll see the previous two-year trend continue in NFTs, and Uptober will be Floptober once again in NFTs.
Peep the charts
No FUD, just FACTS, last week’s US$58 million in cross-chain sales reflects the lowest week of sales we have seen in 2023. And total transactions? Same story there. It’s not all bad news though. While the low sales puts the NFT market on par with February 2021, buyers, sellers, and transactions reflect the true growth of the NFT economy, mostly up this week, and outpacing early 2021 exponentially.
It’s the completed month of September that is more eye-opening, with its US$294 million in total sales representing the lowest NFT sales since January 2021.
- DMarket gaming skin dominance continues, this week having the benefit of the legendary game CounterStrike 2 launching.
- Big sales and sweeps in the BAYC collection drove sales up 61.97%, with some whale collectors finding value in the collection when the floor price reached the mid-20 ETH range.
- Beeple threw a party for CryptoPunks last weekend, putting the iconic NFT collection front and center, while showing why people love collecting so much. It’s actually the community.
- Pudgy Penguins were the biggest story last week, announcing that Pudgy Penguin toys and plushies are now stocked in 2,000 Walmart stores across the USA.
- Ethereum is the king of the NFT market again, and it’s hard to not notice that wash sales are declining on a weekly basis. Where is that action going? It’s all but confirmed, they have moved to Friend.tech.
- Mythos Chain continues to win over more and more eyes as the public is waking up to the fact that CounterStrike gaming skins are being traded on the blockchain. DMarket again makes up 99% of Mythos Chain’s total sales volume.
- DraftKings again makes up 52% of Polygon’s total NFT sales, and it’s these sales that are helping Polygon stay ahead of Solana on the weekly collection rankings.